Frontier Engagement

Levi stepped back from their fury and raised his hands, face red. “I didn’t do it!”

Rina didn’t know what to believe. His protests seemed genuine, but then so had every word from the Fosgraves’ mouths. The letters made it plain that someone didn’t want her here. But whether she taught at Wallin Landing was Catherine and Mrs. Wallin’s choice.

And hers.

Rina lifted her skirts and swept to the board. “I certainly hope a student in my school would realize the impropriety of using a double negative. And stupid—” she picked up the chalk and marked through the word “—will never be applied to this school or any of its students.”

A sharp sound startled her. Turning, she found James applauding, his grin growing with each movement. He looked as if his marvelous horses had just birthed a prize foal. The cold she’d been feeling evaporated to be replaced with a warmth that went straight to her heart.

“Well said, Miss Fosgrave,” Mrs. Wallin declared with a nod of satisfaction. “I do believe we’ve found our teacher.”

“So it would seem,” Catherine replied with a smile to Rina and a look to her husband. “Let me show you the teacher’s quarters, Miss Fosgrave. Beth took special care to make them welcoming.” She glanced over her shoulder at James and Levi as if daring them to misbehave.

“Why don’t you go check on the horses?” James said to Levi. “You know I can’t mix Lance’s grain to his liking.”

Levi rolled his eyes. “You get it wrong on purpose so I’ll do the work for you.”

James put a hand to his heart. “Never!”

Drew chuckled, then lay a large hand that could not be denied on Levi’s shoulder. Eyes narrowed, the youth left the school with his oldest brother. Rina felt some of the tension leave with him.

She thought James might follow his brothers, but he insisted on carrying the lamp for the ladies. Indeed, he hung on Rina’s heels like a loyal guard, as if determined to protect her. Did he think whoever had written those words was hiding in the other room, ready to make good on the threat? A chill ran through her at the idea.

“If Levi didn’t write those words on the board,” she said to Catherine as her hostess led her to the door beside the hearth, “who did?”

Catherine and Mrs. Wallin exchanged glances.

“I wouldn’t be concerned,” Mrs. Wallin said. “It was only a childish prank.”

Rina wasn’t so sure. She didn’t know too many children who would dare to deface the schoolroom or threaten the teacher.

“Do the other families want this school as much as you do?” she asked Catherine as her former traveling companion pushed open the door.

Catherine’s lips thinned. “Want it or not, the school is much needed.”

Beth wiggled past them just then, snatching the lamp from James. “Oh, please, let me do the honors. I do so hope you like it, Miss Fosgrave. I chose the patterns out of Godey’s.”

“A magazine that is the end-all and be-all of Beth’s existence,” James murmured to Rina with a smile that brightened the room more than the lamp.

The teacher’s quarters consisted of a single cozy room. Heat would radiate from the stones of the hearth, and the window overlooking the woods made the space seem larger. A wooden bedstead stood against one wall, covered with a blue-and-green quilt that matched the colors on the braided rug covering the floor. A real armchair—overstuffed and comfy looking, sat in the corner with a set of shelves beside it to hold her things. An oval mirror and porcelain-covered washbasin rested on a worktable, with a beautiful carved chest beside it.

Rina pressed her fingers to her lips, tears burning her eyes. She’d slept on feather beds, under swansdown-filled comforters covered in velvet. But this, this was real and truly hers.

“Oh, Beth,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”

Beth’s face turned a happy red.

James wandered to the wooden chest. “I see you’re putting all your hope in education, Beth,” he said, fingers touching the carved roses along the side.

Her color deepened as she raised her head. “Drew made it for me. I can do with it what I want.”

Realization struck. “Beth, I can’t accept your hope chest!” Rina cried. “I can make do with my trunk to store my clothing. We’ll have someone return your chest to the house.”

James pressed a hand to his lower back and groaned, earning him a laugh from Beth.

Rina couldn’t help but be touched. They’d taken such pains to make the school and teacher’s quarters lovely as well as functional. Who would find fault with the school or threaten the teacher?

“You were going to tell me about the students,” she said to Catherine.

“Did you notice the quilt, Miss Fosgrave?” Beth asked, hurrying to the bed. “Ma stitched it. You can see the school in the middle.”

Rina could make out a shape that resembled a log cabin sewn into the fabric. But she had a feeling Beth was merely trying to divert her attention.

James evidently thought the same, for he straightened. “You don’t have to posture, Beth. We may have decided that Miss Fosgrave is everything we could wish in a teacher, but she deserves to know everything about the position before making her decision.” He turned to Catherine. “Tell her.”

Catherine nodded as if accepting her fate. “We only have three students right now, Miss Fosgrave—Beth, Levi and a young fellow named Scout Rankin.”

Rina frowned. “Forgive me, but I must have misunderstood you. Beth is nearly grown...”

“Thank you!” Beth cried with an eye to her mother, who shook her head.

“And Levi appears to be an adult,” Rina finished.

“He’s eighteen,” his mother confessed. “Scout’s seventeen.” She eyed her daughter. “And despite any other hopes, Beth is still only fourteen.”

Beth deflated with a sigh.

So did Rina’s hopes. She could feel James watching her as she glanced at each of them in turn. “You have no need for a grammar school,” she said. “You want a university.”

Beth nodded eagerly, but Catherine held up a finger. “Not quite. For one thing, their skills aren’t advanced enough for a true university setting. For another, the distance to Seattle is great enough that we cannot send them to the territorial university there, even if they had the proper underpinnings. Besides, I would never trust their education to that man.”

That man. Rina knew she must mean Asa Mercer. Catherine and her friend Allegra Banks Howard had been some of the most vocal opponents of the emigration agent and university president aboard ship on the way to Seattle. Like Rina, they could not appreciate his high-handed ways and underhanded approach of accepting bride money from men without informing the prospective brides. Any teacher would be better than him.

But Rina hadn’t come prepared to teach at the university level. At times she’d wondered whether she would be able to discipline an unruly child. How did one discipline men? She’d purchased primers with the last of her funds, prepared to teach rudimentary skills to young learners. These would be more determined students, ones with every ability to thwart her, try her patience, sap her strength.

Keep her from remembering all she’d lost.

“We know we’re asking a lot,” James said to her, gaze serious for once. “But this school is important. Beth and Levi are important. We want the best for them.”

And he thought she was the best. Once more her heart swelled. He knew exactly the words to disarm and persuade her. She shouldn’t trust him, yet she wanted to.

She turned to Catherine and Mrs. Wallin. “It would be my honor to accept the position of teacher at the Lake Union School. I will do everything in my power to provide my students with the education needed to take their places in the world.”

James smiled as if he’d known all along this was the right decision. Rina felt it, as well.

Thank You, Lord.

Beth wasn’t content to smile. She threw her arms around Rina and hugged her so tightly Rina’s breath left in a rush. “Oh, thank you, thank you, Miss Fosgrave!”